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HOT LINK ROUND-UP – School Bullying, Women in Combat and Reproductive Constraints as an Evolutionary Strategy

Bullying in School: This first link is to a really disturbing story from a middle school in a suburban area of Pierce County in Washington, across the Narrows Bridge from Tacoma. About six months ago in an eighth grade classroom a dozen students “drag[ged] a smaller boy around the room, holding him like a hammock, peeling off his socks, writing on his feet, stuffing a sock in his mouth, holding a pillow over his face and covering him with chairs.” Meanwhile the teacher looks on and even joins in. This goes on for fifteen minutes. He later said he did not think anyone was at risk of harm.

First thing – try imagining this happening to a girl in the first place.

And if this attack were not disturbing enough, the school’s response borders on criminal. The district suspended the teacher for ten days and then shifted him to another school. (Does this pattern sound familiar?) No one called the police to investigate anything, even though this attack certainly amounts to probably a felony level of assault. The kid told no one, naturally enough.

And district is still defending its inaction and cover up. Second thing – try imagining this level of non-response being attempted or toelrated if the victim had been a girl.

(No trigger warning on this one. We could all stand to rub out noses in this shit without forewarning.)

Women in Combat: Then here’s an interesting development in the area of women in combat. US Representative Judy Chu, (D- CA):

…announced the creation of Femme Fatal, a movement specifically tasked with ensuring that women get the same opportunities to be shot, killed, wounded, and suffer debilitating emotional stress as men throughout the military.

And she’s not framing this as some kind of expansion of women’s rights, either:

“Did you know that in the past decade, our military has only had 140 women killed in combat?” asked Rep. Chu. ”Compare that to more than six thousand men killed, and it paints a disturbing picture of a military reluctant to let women near the front lines. Obviously we have to find a way to narrow the casualty gap.”

There’s an entertaining discussion in the comments, as you can imagine.

And apparently the entire blog is a spoof. This society is a long way from valuing men’s lives as much as women’s.

Reproductive Constraints: And here’s a Science Daily article on how reproductive constraints in a social species are an effective evolutionary strategy. It appears ant species have different degrees of reproductive constraint and the more derived species have the highest. Reproductive constraints reduce conflict within the society, apparently. and that makes sense, because reproduction after all is the ultimate and highest form of selfishness.

In humans this may have parallels in the evolution of homosexuality and menopause as evolutionary strategies.

As far as the first link, yeah that sh*t went on all the time while I was growing up….

Yup, the hazing in Full Metal Jacket seems kind of mild with what I saw and went through growing up in a rustbelt area of the East Coast….

not surprised the teacher was the ringleader, y’know what they say-Those who can’t do, teach….

Valkina

And then there wonder why America has so many school shootings.It was my Marlin Mancan and hes…….right………..riiiigghhhhttttt.

I am one of the people who supports women in combat. But sometimes it seems that my reasons are vastly different than most peoples are.Some of this woman think the hollywood wars are the same as real life wars.

In nature there is something college “life plan”.
You have 2 options:
1.Live short life,have many offspring,don’t spend much time taking care of them,because they have low survival rate.The offspring grows up fast.
2.Live the long life,have small number of offspring,spend lat of time taking care of them,offspring grows up slow.They have higher survival rate.
The first plan is good fore harsh envaorment.Because reproduction takes lat of energy,and not just reproduction itself but mating dance and ather similar strategies.They also expous the creature to predator attacks and so one.So in this situation it is best to have lot of offspring since there are going to die fast,you are not going to live vary log,so you have nothing to lose when it comes to life length.
The second option is go when you have enuf resource and there are not many predators.Life is good what would you want to die jung.You don’t reproduce kuwait as often because you don’t need to.You don’t need 100 babies because they have big chance of dying,you only need 3 or 4.And you send lots of time taking care of them.In regards to that you life is long.
The plan 1 does not vork in harsh envaorment because if you have to mash baby,thu will it all the food,and your species will go extinct because of that.It happens kuwait often when predator is removed from habitat do to exsesiv hunting.So the prey species that is just to having many offspring,will continue having them ,and eventually there be so many of them that there will eat all the food.Which it will cause extinction to to hunger.
Whan ather thing that was noutest in plan 2 is that many of this creature will engege in homosexualit ,to prevent high birth rate.This is one of the reasons why homosexualit some saentist think that is survival strategi.There are ather things like
sexyaly matureing later in lifre,and menopause.

Aych

I recognized the women in combat spoof when I read it.

Hey, Gingko? Here’s an interesting question, and I’m saying this recognizing the fact that men in the U.S. are relatively powerless when it comes to this issue:

Don’t you think it would be both effective and inspiring if a large group of women were to register for Selective Service in protest at it being a male only program?

That would surely get some attention, wouldn’t it? In fact, I suspect that would be the only way to get any action taken on the issue. The media would be sympathetic. Congressmen would be sympathetic. I imagine that really would break its back. Men protesting Selective Service wouldn’t get much attention at all, but women defying sexism to register would.

I’m sad to say it, but women really are in a position to be more effective on this. That’s jut the reality.

Ginkgo

“Some of this woman think the hollywood wars are the same as real life wars.”

There seems to be a difference between women who actually go into the military, who very soon find out what it is really about, and women outside doing all this advocacy, who seem to think it’s a jobs program.

The rest you sketch out is about evolutionary strategies. Humans chose the second option a very long time ago and there is no going back.

The most extreme example among mammals of the first option is marsupials, who don’t even have to put up with long pregnancies – their young are “born” at like three weeks and crawl up into the pouch, and can be aborted very easily in case of drought or whatever, but who often have a second embryo waiting in suspended animation when conditions improve so they don’t even have to wait to mate. Really, it amazes me that placental mammals won out in most of the world in the frst place.

“There seems to be a difference between women who actually go into the military, who very soon find out what it is really about, and women outside doing all this advocacy, who seem to think it’s a jobs program.”

Whell I am one of women that want to join the military.But I am not going in there with some silly hollywood image of it.I lived threy too many real life wars force me to except the hollywood portrayal of it.

“The rest you sketch out is about evolutionary strategies. Humans chose the second option a very long time ago and there is no going back.”
We could it “life plan” the evolutenery baolog class.It is one component of survival strategies.Maybe my translation is wrong,since I did it literary.

Ginkgo

No I think your translation is right, it’s just another term for the same thing.

“Whell I am one of women that want to join the military.But I am not going in there with some silly hollywood image of it.I lived threy too many real life wars force me to except the hollywood portrayal of it.”

That makes sense to me!

Tamen

The links and videos on the bullying case made my blood boil. It being excused as roughhousing by the teacher show a total lack on his behalf of grasping what roughhousing is. Roughhousing is often a good thing enjoyed by everyone involved. It’s no longer roughhousing when one person is singled out and handled physically by many others while yet more people stand around cheering and laughing at his humiliation. This teacher’s ( with his 18 years experience) inability to understand this crucial difference is just mind-blowing.

The teacher put forth the fact that no-one complained about being sore, assaulted or injured as a defense. He should realize that putting up a good face and not showing the terror/fear/hurt one experiences in such a situation is a very common defense mechanism (one I’ve myself have used when I was put through a somewhat milder hasing than this boy endured when I serving in the military). There is a real fear that expressing fear, hurt or pain will work like blood in the water for the tormentors.

I hope the parents succeeds in getting him fired, but I would consider the downplaying of the seriousness and witholding information about the incident from the school to be a more serious matter as that is just enabling these things to happen again and again…

Ginkgo

Tamen, I agree with every point of that comment. I think the school district’s failure to turn the matter over to the police is the most serious of all. You may have noticed, the police are still considering criminal charges. I hope they go after the school officials as much as after the treacher.

Bloody hell this is time for police action. The teacher himself needs to be in jail. The officials who turned a blind eye to this need to be charged if their is a law for it. Sheesh this is horrible.

Lamech

Oh gosh, I really thought the response of “it was an isolated incident over 18 years”. … I wish the criminal courts saw it that way.

Ginkgo

“Bloody hell this is time for police action. The teacher himself needs to be in jail. The officials who turned a blind eye to this need to be charged if their is a law for it. ”

The officials had a legal responsibility to report this. There is a specific law in Washington State requiring educators – and that’s every teacher and administrator – to report child abuse. Generally that is taken to mean reporting when a kid comes in with suspicious bruises, but this case clearly fits the criteria that trigger a report. Instead the administrators decided to hush this all up and keep it in house and just move the teacher, the way pedophile priests used to get moved around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUv02VxAcNU MaMu1977

Compare this to the Savannah Dietrich case. Two guys take pictures of her breasts: sexual assault, sex offender registry, etc.

A group of kids molest and manhandle a boy: “Move along now, nothing to see here.”(Officer Barbrady voice)